


this beating heart

by liminal



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 09:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3845701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liminal/pseuds/liminal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 'Mr Scratch'</p><p>
  <i>At night, Lewis’ words ring in his ears and his sweat soaks through the sheets. Creaking doors keep him awake until the dawn leaks through the curtains.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	this beating heart

“Endure, my heart; a worse thing even than this didst thou once endure…” So he spoke, chiding the heart in his breast, and his heart remained bound within him to endure steadfastly; but he himself lay tossing this way and that” – Homer, the _Odyssey_ , book 20. 

*

Hotch sits and shakes in the dark corners of his bedroom, his bathroom, his office, his mind. His hands tremble and water slops over the the side of the glass, loaded forks make it halfway to his mouth before clattering back to the plate, his clip is empty before he knows it and there isn’t a single hole on target.

He didn't smile much before, but now his lips only twist up on one side of his face, and the amusement doesn’t reach his eyes. Jack tries his best to make his dad laugh with tales from school and the playground, flushing gently when a certain girl’s name comes up in tconversation, but Hotch is only half listening and Jack can’t keep the enthusiasm up forever.

At night, Lewis’ words ring in his ears and his sweat soaks through the sheets. Creaking doors keep him awake until the dawn leaks through the curtains. 

*

 _You’ve had worse,_ Hotch tells himself, _you’ve been through worse and survived. You have responsibilities and priorities- and 10 hours of sleep in the last week._

 _Come on,_ Hotch tells himself, _the sun always rises. Think of Jack and the team you thought you saw shot dead- and of yourself, how often do you do that?_

 _You’ll make it,_ Hotch tells himself, _you are battle-tested and weather-beaten, no newborn baby come crying into this world. Get up in the morning and put on your suit- and don’t look at the mirror on your way out._

*

They all try to bring Hotch back. Rossi offers vintage red wine and Cuban cigars with a twinkle in his eye, on the grounds that no questions are asked about their providence. Garcia brings fresh cookies and suggestions for team nights out, and can barely hold the tears back when Beth returns from Hong Kong. JJ takes Jack for the weekend, lets Beth and Hotch have some time to themselves, but Beth looks pale and stressed on Sunday evening. Kate volunteers to interrogate Lewis and find out exactly what the son of a bitch did, and Morgan simply says he’s here. To talk. To go to the shooting range with, to run with, to drink with.

But it’s Reid who succeeds where they all fail. 

Reid, who stays at his desk longer into the evening that he needs to, who talks more openly about to going to the theatre with a girl, who extracts the first hint of a genuine Hotch smile when the team goes out for Chinese and chopsticks prove as difficult to use as they did when Reid was 24.

“How did you do it,” they all ask, in tones of wonderment when Hotch isn’t there or in quiet murmurs when he’s leading the way.

And Spencer says simply that it’s different when you’ve been there, too. To JJ and Garcia, he says that he grew up watching his mother shrink from the shadows and found a way to coax her back into the light. He tells Rossi and Morgan that he's been through this himself, has survived the nights when you loathe your own beating heart, when you want it all to end. With Kate, he smiles at her growing baby bump and says that Hotch has the future to think about. 

He says that he knows what it’s like to be afraid of your own mind, that he knows how it feels when someone else has power over you; that even Odysseus wasn’t unfailingly strong. 

*

It’s Spencer Reid who proves, through little gestures and the mere fact of his continued existence, that life goes on. Survival is inevitable.


End file.
